“Best night of my life,” the mighty mind-reader Vitali said, “but it doesn’t change the world around us…” He glanced down and grinned at how I squirmed. “Mostly. And I would like nothing more than to continue it into tomorrow, but I have to go, and I don’t know when I’ll be back, so I don’t want you waiting.”
It was the‘I don’t know when I’ll be back’that tipped me over. I didn’t want to bring any of it up that morning, but for all I knew, he might disappear for weeks, and I could coach myself through it all I wanted, but this couldn’t wait. “Can we talk first?”
“Depends. About what?”
“You said that you could get me anything, as long as I asked and gave you time, right?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to get Mama and Maxim foreign passports.”
He frowned, searching my face. “Why?”
“I don’t want them to be a part of this—this thing. I’ve placed them in enough danger. I need to know that if anything happens, they can leave.”
“And you want to leave with them…”
The small kitchen had a draft, but I hadn’t noticed it until right then.
“No. That’s why I want them to have the passports. Because I know I’m not leaving, but if I’m not leaving, it means they will always be a part ofthisRussia, and I don’t want that for them.”
He didn’t believe me, because his grip tightened, as if his fingers were the only thing keeping me from getting on a plane.
“They’ll be far better off somewhere else than they could be here…” I whispered and stroked his disheveled hair. “You want that for Dasha—and I for Mama and Maxim.”
It was the right thing to say, so why didn’t it feel like it?
“Alright… It will take a few weeks, but I’ll get that for them. There is more paperwork if they are to remain out of the country, and it’s harder to secure, but I’ll do that for you, Kotik.”
I kissed him. He leaned his forehead against my shoulder, and I felt the tremor of his hard gulp, sharing in the pain of the agreement. This wasn’t just me sending my family away.
“Thank you.”
“Let’s get some food. It’s been a long day already, and I just woke up.”
We did, and I had beet salad before he dropped me off. Then, I checked on Mama and helped her clean out my once-briefly-occupied room. I stopped outside the apartments and gave Pavel and Roman the meat pies she baked. And then I came home to a small vase with three red roses.
I cried because it was too soon to sleep in an empty bed.
And then I received a call from Elena’s mama saying she’d gone missing.
34
When You Learn to Swim
Ihad his number dialed with my finger hovering over the call button.
I spent the night shaking, crying, and dialing Elena’s home phone countless times without ever sending it through. I called Mama, and we talked for a while—she calmed me down even at a late hour. Still, she kept telling me to ‘ask Vitali, ask Vitali’because she thought he could do anything too.
Vitali wasn’t due back for two days. More, if another flower delivery came.
That’s why I didn’t think, and did something I would later regret.
I pressed the call button.
It rang.
“Katya,” Misha said flatly. Greeting, question, and swear word all at once.
